Set the Twilight Reeling
by Skidmark Wahlberg
Summary: Summary to be written in near future.
1. Prologue

**PROLOGUE**

She stood over the professor, breathing heavily. It wasn't because of nervousness; she hadn't been nervous at all. It was the right thing to do. It was the only way to make it right.

The lights flickered. The damn power was on the fritz again. No matter. She knew her way around, light or no light. And it wasn't like there was anywhere she could go.

She dropped the professor's scalpel on the floor with a metallic clatter, and sat in a chair in the corner. The walls of the room were Spartan in their décor: a few medical charts and illustrations, and a corkboard with notices tacked to it. The corkboard was worn out from years of use, and flecks of it had fallen to the floor.

The lights flickered again. She looked across the room to the white medical cabinets with glass doors. The boxes of supplies and medical instruments were askew, in contrast to their usual orderliness. The glass on the farthest right cabinet was cracked from where she had hit her head during the struggle. She ran her fingers through her hair and felt the beginnings of a welt, but no blood. Somehow the glass door had not broken. That could have been bad.

There was a speck of blood on her nametag. She didn't think it was hers; her body showed signs of having been in a fight, but she didn't feel any open wounds on her torso or appendages. She ran her thumb across the drop of blood on the nametag, leaving a thin red film. "Susanna Sharpe," the name said. Everyone was required to wear their officially issued name badge. She thought it was stupid; everyone knew each other, and it wasn't like there were any new arrivals coming.

 _There could have been_ , Susanna thought, as she cast her eyes toward the examination table in the center of the room. She became aware of a dull ache in her hip, from where she had been thrown against the corner of the table. She rubbed it through her torn shirt, wincing in discomfort. It would leave a bruise; that was for sure.

Susanna drew her gaze on the table again. Subconsciously, she realized that the last time she had been in this room was when…it had happened. That was five months ago. Or maybe it was six; it was hard to keep track of the passage of time anymore. Minutes, hours, days, weeks…everything just seemed to mush together. She'd stopped wearing a watch a long time ago; she didn't see the point of it.

The ceiling lights tripped off and on again, casting a dull yellowish glow on the body lying face down on the floor. It didn't look anything like the dead bodies she'd seen in movies; what the silver screen had rendered as beautiful and peaceful reality rendered as grotesque. The professor's neck was twisted at an awkward angle, pressing his face into a ghoulish mask against the cold floor. She could see into his dead eyes; one was cast downward while the other had rolled into the back of his head. Gravity had forced his tongue out of his mouth, and it lay disgustingly against the aluminum-tiled floor. Rivulets of blood ran from his nose and mouth. His arms and legs were at angles that would be uncomfortable for any living person, and his skin, pale in life, had already begun to take on that wan shade that only comes with death. He'd pissed and shit himself; the room was starting to stink.

The professor's blood had spread along the floor tiles in a pool that covered nearly half of the room. Soon, his assistant would come in and slip in the puddle of coagulated crimson and fall on the body, pushing the professor's innards out on the floor in a sickening display. Soon, the body would be examined, with the autopsy report concluding a death by stabbing. Soon, Susanna would be asked why she had felt the need to stab him over fifty times. She would reply that she just wanted to make sure the job was right the first time.

She rested the back of her head against the wall and felt a sting of pain, but ignored it. She instead concentrated on the hum of the overhead lights. Everything hummed around here. She liked it; the droning helped her sleep. Her mind wandered to better times. To use the term "better" was a misnomer, she thought. Times had never exactly been good. But compared to now, things had definitely been better.

She thought of the things that had brought her some measure of happiness: the musty smell of the paperbacks in her father's closet. The water ice that had occasionally been served with meals. The nights in the filter room…especially the nights in the filter room.

She thought of the jukebox in the common area. It was an old Wurlitzer style model that had been modified to play compact discs. It mostly contained what her father had called "classic rock," and she'd come to like it very much. She thought of Nick Lowe, and the time she decided to get up and dance. She even remembered the title of the song, which surprised her. She was usually terrible with things like that.

The song was called "7 Nights to Rock," and she'd gotten up to dance. Later, she would laugh and think that everything that had happened to her all came about because she liked Nick Lowe and had danced with someone else who liked Nick Lowe. It was a funny way of thinking, but life could be funny, couldn't it?


	2. Chapter 1

**ONE**

"…never changes."

Susanna sat up with a start. She'd been muttering under her breath, a habit she'd gotten into almost accidentally. There wasn't anyone else to talk to, she figured, so she might as well talk to herself.

"This goddamn weather never changes," she'd said. It wasn't an entirely inaccurate statement; the sky had been overcast for nearly two weeks, but it had been sticky and humid. Her body was clammy with sweat, and she felt filthy.

She sat in a plush but mold-covered chair in what had been the First National Bank of Salinas, California. A slight breeze blew through the building, carrying paper trash from the street, through the bank's broken windows, and into the lobby where she sat. Loose papers floated around the building. Some collected at the foot of what had been a teller's station. Some of the papers blowing through the bank were dollar bills, but not many. The vault, off to her right, had been blown open and cleaned out long ago.

She wouldn't stay here tonight; there were too many ways into the building. Besides the broken windows, the ceiling on the western side of the lobby had caved in. The entire bank stunk of black mold and bird shit. However, Susanna was very happy to find a place to sit and rest that wasn't concrete. Upholstered furniture was hard to come by; most of it had been burned for heat. Moldy as this chair was, it was comfortable.

She finished off the last of the meat from the dog she'd killed two days ago, and checked her revolver. Of course, it was loaded. But you could never be too sure. She dug through her pack, and found a bottle of water that was about one-third full. She opened it, drank its contents, and chucked the empty bottle across the empty bank lobby. It hit a piece of concrete with a bonk and rolled away.

Susanna rose from the chair, yawned, and stretched. She looked out to the street. It looked like rain was coming, which was nice. Her clothes needed to be washed, and maybe the rain would wipe out some of the humidity. She picked up her pack and checked the compass on her wrist. The barkeep in the last town had said there would be a place to stop and load up on supplies just south of what had formerly been Salinas. If all went well, she'd get there tomorrow.

 **2**

The rain arrived later that evening. She'd traveled a few miles south, and set up camp in what appeared to have been a radio station. The building's broadcast antenna had been ripped off the roof for scrap, but the station's call letters – KDON – were faintly visible on a weathered sign in the building's lobby. The station's equipment looked mostly untouched, but Susanna doubted any of it worked.

The storm brought steady but calm rain. She stood naked on the roof as the raindrops fell and wiped her body with a rag. It wasn't the luxury of warm water, but after two weeks of humidity it felt majestic. She wrung the dirt and sweat out of her cloths and laid them out in the station's control room to dry.

Inside, she dug an MRE out of her pack and ate. The contents on the label said she was eating chicken, noodles, and vegetables, but she couldn't tell which was which. She preferred MREs, even though they cost more. Starting fires at night to cook was always risky; you could be seen from miles around, and raiders were always looking for a sleeping target. She did keep a small lantern burning, just so she could have some light while eating.

She followed the same routine as every night. She rolled out her bed in a place with a narrow entrance. She set up a flash-bang grenade and a tripwire just down the hall from where she was sleeping. She'd never needed it yet, but...just in case. And she took an inventory of her things: An eight-inch hunting knife. A hatchet. A sharpening stone for both. A flint and some matches for starting fires. A canteen, and three bottles of water. A small jar of fuel for her lantern. A blanket. A set of binoculars. A 10/22 rifle with a nearly full box of ammo. A six-shot .38 revolver, and twelve bullets for it. A hunting bow, and seven arrows. Eight MREs, and two cans of beans. A pot for cooking. A tourniquet, bandages, and a needle and thread. A compass, and a old and largely inaccurate map. An extra pair of wool socks. A bag of caps; at last count about 75.

And a few joints. Susanna laid back and lit one, taking the smoke deep into her lungs. It was shit, but it wasn't like there was much good soil for growing anymore. She supposed that she should be thankful that pot was one of the few things that did grow reasonably well.

She relaxed and glanced around the room. It was covered with old and yellowed tour posters. One advertised Prince on the Lovesexy tour in Oakland 1988. Another advertised Kanye West on the Yeezus tour in L.A. 2013. Yet another featured Kendrick Lamar; Susanna had never heard of him.

The rain continued to fall with a steady beat on the roof. Day had fully given way to night. Susanna finished her joint and tossed the remnant of her rolling paper out into the hall, closed her eyes, and slept.

 **3**

She reached the outpost around noon the next day. She'd been told it was small, but well-traveled. Her source was right on both counts; the place had been carved out of a 12-room motel, and there was a whole row of brahmin and horses hitched up outside. The old sign on the motel was faded to the point where it could no longer be read, except a few freshly painted letters. Where a sign had once read "NO VACANCY," the current owners of the motel had painted "NOVAC." A few rough-looking women hung around the side of the building. Susanna looked at them, but they paid no attention. "World's oldest profession," Susanna thought.

She heard conversation from outside the motel's main entrance, and poked her head inside. What was once an office had been converted into a bar; five men sat on stools drinking, and another tended the bar. She walked in and took a seat at the far end of the bar.

She picked up on the conversation the other patrons were having. The one speaking was tanned, wore a dirty rag on his head, and had a thick growth of stubble. "They say Kelton's a shoo-in to be next president of the NCR," he said.

"S' what I heard," said another. He also wore a rag on his head, and had a leather jacket draped across his shoulders. "Kelton's promising the world. He says he's going to crack down on the raiders, establish some safer trading routes, you know."

"It's all bullshit," Stubble said. "NCR can't control shit outside of San Diego. Past two weeks out here I've had raiders try to jump my crew twice."

A third patron, one smoking a cigarette and nursing a beer, looked over at Susanna. "Don't get many ladies out this way," he said.

"Just passing through," Susanna replied.

"You're traveling out there all by yourself? You've got some solid balls, don't mind me saying."

"Don't mind at all."

Susanna sized him up. He looked to be in his forties, and had a scar running the length of his left cheek. He wore a dusty cowboy hat that had a pair of eagle feathers in it. Like the other men in the bar, his skin was tanned and weathered. Unlike the other men in the bar, he was clean-shaven.

"Not much of a talker," he said.

"Not much."

He stepped off his stool and walked over. He didn't quite stride; he shuffled instead. He'd suffered a leg injury in the past. Susanna wondered how he was still alive. The man extended his hand. "I'm Hank," he said.

She took it. "Susanna."

"What brings you out this way?"

"I'm looking for a few people," she said.

"Anyone important?" Hank replied.

"One of them is." She paused. "I also wouldn't mind a drink."

Hank snapped his fingers in the direction of the barkeep, who finally started moving. "Will," he said, "get over here and get this lady a drink."

The barkeep motioned to Susanna, and asked her what she wanted. "We've got beer, vodka, whiskey, some homebrew. Or you can have a shot of brahmin piss. One cap for a shot."

"What's brahmin piss?" she said.

Hank motioned to a pail behind the bar. "We dump the drinks that people don't finish into the pail. It's for anyone brave enough to drink it."

"I think I'll pass," Susanna said. "I'll take a beer."

"I own this place," Hank said. "Used to be a trader, but I crossed a wolf. Tore up my leg. And gave me this." He pointed to the scar on his cheek.

The barkeep brought the bottle of beer and opened it. Susanna took a sip. It was watery but chilled. Compared to the bland MREs and lukewarm water she'd been living on for the past week, the beer was delicious.

"It's a bit of shithole," Hank continued. "But it's my shithole. I try to keep everyone happy."

Susanna had noticed Stubble and Leather eyeballing her. Hank had his back turned, but knew exactly what she was looking at. "Watch out for those two," he said in a low voice. "I ain't seen them before, but I know their type. Be careful they don't try to knock you out and stick it in."

"Thanks for the warning," she said, and took another sip of her beer.

"Don't mention it."

"I talked to some people north of Salinas. They said the caravans stop here."

"They do," Hank said. "About every three or four days. They came by yesterday, so they probably won't be back until the end of the week."

"Just my luck," Susanna said. "I need to buy some stuff before I set out again."

"You can hang out here. Anyone can, so long as they got the caps and don't cause trouble."

"I don't have a whole lot of caps," Susanna replied.

Hank paused for a moment and scratched his chin. "You handy with tools?"

"I can manage."

"That's good. My roof needs some fixing, but it's hard for me to get up there. Bum leg and all, you know."

"I'll help you out if you cut me a deal," Susanna said.

"Read my mind," Hank replied. Rooms usually go for eight caps a night. "Help me with the roof and I'll charge you half that."

Susanna shook his hand again. "Sounds like a deal. How much for the beer?"

"Tell you what," Hank said. "Join me for a few brews while you're here, and it's on the house."

 **4**

Upon seeing her room, Susanna concluded that Hank was right; Novac was a shithole. The walls were paper-thin, the carpet was threadbare, everything was dirty, and there were come stains on her mattress. But it had electricity, powered by an outdoor generator, and the building had a shower with hot water. Susanna hadn't had a hot shower in months, and it felt wonderful.

Stubble's room was next to hers. He'd brought one of the hookers into his room, and she could hear them fucking through the walls. She got tired of listening to it, and walked to the bar, only a few doors down from her room. Hank was sitting with Will the barkeep, and they were playing poker.

Hank looked up from his cards. "Five-card draw," he said. "You want in?"

"Thanks, but I don't have the caps to play," she replied.

"Neither do we. Hell, even if we did I wouldn't play with 'em. Will here's a stone-faced bastard at the card table. C'mon and join us."

Susanna sat down. Hank offered a beer and she accepted. Will dealt a hand.

"So how'd you end up here?" Susanna asked.

"Used to be a trader, like I told you. Worked with Will's daddy an' we went all over the NCR. Even dealt with the folks in New Vegas, Sunnyvale and Arroyo. Never set foot on Legion territory though. I ain't that dumb."

Hank drew a card, and so did Susannah.

"Will's daddy got killed by raiders when he was a boy, and I raised him as my own. Then the wolf got me, and it got a lot harder to get around. So we set up shop here. S' a good location. There ain't much between Salinas, Fresno, and Bakersfield, so we get all kinds of folks comin' and goin'."

"Two pair," Will said, laying his cards down.

"Shit," Hank said. I just got a pair of tens."

Susanna had nothing. Will dealt another hand.

"How 'bout you?" Hank said.

"Oh, I'm a little bit here and a little bit there," Susanna said.

"North or south?" Will asked.

"North," Susanna said. "But nothing permanent. I just kind of float around."

"It's about all a lot of us do anymore," said Hank. He paused and looked at his cards. He drew two, as did Will. "You said earlier you're looking for someone."

"I did."

"Anybody me an' Will might know? Might be able to put you in the right direction."

Susanna dug in her pants pocket and produced a picture. "This is one of them," she said.

Hank stared at the picture for a moment and passed it to Will. Will looked at it even longer. "Jesus tap-dancing Christ," he exhaled.

"You have history?" Susanna said.

"We do," replied Will.

"That's Deke Greenberg," Hank said. "Mean sumbitch."

"So he's been through here?"

"About six months ago," Will said. "He got good an' drunk an' started some shit. Took out a knife and took off a small piece of my ear." Will brushed his hair back on his left side, revealing his ear. It had a ragged scar across the helix. "A couple of our patrons helped us kick him out. He ain't welcome here no more, but there ain't much preventing him from coming back. He's about as big as me an' Hank put together."

"So he's a mean drunk," Susanna said.

"Yeah, and a bit more," said Will. "He's run with raiders before. May still do, I don't know for sure. But he's been known to fuck up people who cross him."

"I'll keep that in mind. You know where he is?"

"West of here. Near the coast. He hangs around a place that used to be called Monterey."

Susanna laid her cards down. "Pair of jacks."

"Not bad, little lady," Hank said. "Best I can do is eights."

"Full house," Will said. Hank sighed in disgust.

"What you looking for Greenberg for?" Hank said.

"Just business," Susanna replied.

"Well...you find him, you didn't hear nothin' from us."

"Understood."

 **5**

Susanna began working on Hank's roof the next day. She could tell that it would be a tough job. A lot of the sheet metal paneling was old and rusting, and would fall apart with the smack of a hammer. She took to exploring the area surrounding Novac in the hopes that she'd find some scrap laying around, but pickings were slim.

Even though she wasn't hiking far, she took her pack with her. Stubble and Leather were still hanging around, and she didn't want them nosing through her stuff while she wasn't there.

She found an empty office building about two miles south. The door was gone; it had been kicked off its hinges a long time ago. She poked her head inside. There were no signs of any recent occupants. No trash, nothing looked like it had been moved. From what she could tell, nobody had been in there in years.

She walked through the building's lobby and into a rear office area. It was full of cubicles; old particle board desks that had collapsed under the weight of decades-old computers. Faded photographs and printouts were tacked to the walls of some of the cubicles. The photos were of men, women, and children; happy-looking families, couples, and a few pets. Others were of older folks; parents or grandparents. One cubicle had a picture of a toad sitting on a log, with the caption "I'm so happy here I could just shit." Susanna had a quick laugh at that.

She found what she was looking for along the back wall of the room. A row of filing cabinets lined the wall; it looked like there were at least twenty. If Hank had some metal cutters, she could cut the sides off the cabinets and use them as roofing.

The building was a single story, but she still wanted to find the staircase to it, just to get a lay of the land if nothing else. Susanna began trying the doors in the office, and finally came to one that opened to a custodial room with a staircase against the wall. She climbed the stairs to a rusty metal door. She pushed against it, and it stuck. She pushed a little harder, and it swung out with a squeak.

She overlooked what had once been a complex of offices. The building she was standing on was the only reasonably intact structure in her immediate sight. The other buildings in the complex had either caved in or burned down. What was once a parking lot was overgrown with vegetation, but specks of asphalt could still be seen through the weeds. Old cars spotted the overgrowth, rusted and useless.

She thought she saw movement on the horizon, and pulled out her binoculars. She spotted two men in the distance. Both were wearing rags on their heads.

"Shit," Susanna muttered. Both Stubble and Leather had followed her. Hank had been right about them. She crouched down to conceal herself and watched. They were definitely walking toward the building.

She scrambled off the rooftop and down the stairs back to the office area. She scanned the office, looking for a place where she could see the lobby but remain concealed. The cubicles were all low; nothing doing there. She looked into the lobby. It was too open and too bright. She thought about going back up to the roof and decided against it. She could probably leap off if she needed to, but she didn't want to risk a bad fall. And if these two wanted to hurt her, they could very easily trap her on the roof and starve her out.

Susanna looked out to the lobby again, through the kicked-in door to the overgrowth outside. She couldn't see the two men yet, but they had to be close. She scanned the office again. The pillars holding up the ceiling were too small to hide behind.

"Shit," she mumbled again. Then she saw her answer: A decorative mirror was on the wall behind the filing cabinets. At the back of the room to her left was a narrow hallway. She ran over to the mirror and gave it a pull. It ripped off the wall with ease, dried bits of sheetrock flying in the air. She took it over to the hallway and set it on the floor, leaning it against the wall. She set it so she could see who would be coming, but also so it wouldn't catch her reflection for someone approaching the hallway. Susanna pressed her back against the wall, drew her knife, and waited.

She slowed her breathing and listened. At first, nothing. Her heart hammered in her chest, and she felt a rivulet of sweat run down her back. Still nothing. Maybe Stubble and Leather had never seen her leave Novac. Maybe they were heading south just by coincidence. Maybe she was just being paranoid. Maybe-

And then she heard boots crunching on glass. Two male voices drifted out of the lobby, but they were speaking too low to be understood. She looked down at the mirror. The men were entering the office. Their footsteps barely registered on the carpet. They split off; it looked like Stubble was going to the right. Shit. The hallway she was in was reasonably dark, but it wasn't a guarantee she wouldn't be seen if approached from the right. Susanna put her palm on the handle of her revolver.

Leather was walking across the office, his figure growing larger in the mirror. She couldn't tell where Stubble was. Her breaths drew shorter, and she blinked drops of sweat out of her eyes. Leather was no more than five feet away.

"You see anything?" Leather shouted out.

"No," came the reply. Stubble had gone into another room. This was good.

Leather took another step forward. And one more.

Susanna sprang out from the hallway and shoved him into a pillar, rattling it. She held her knife to his throat and pressed. Leather froze, his breath hitching.

Stubble heard the commotion and entered the room. Susanna pulled her revolver and pointed it at him, keeping Leather pressed against the pillar the whole time. "Hold it right there," she said.

Stubble laughed. "You ain't gonna shoot me, girl."

Susanna looked in his direction. "You sure you want to test your luck with that?"

Stubble stayed in place. Apparently he didn't.

"Now I know what the two of you were thinking," Susanna said. "You can just forget about it."

"Hey...hey, look lady," Leather gulped out, "I don't know what you think we were doing, but me and my partner were just looking-"

"Shut up," Susanna said, digging her knife even harder into his neck. She motioned to Stubble. "You armed?"

"I got a six-shooter," Stubble said, and motioned to a holster on his hip.

"Drop it," Susanna said. "And do it slow. Thumb and finger." She kept her gun trained on him. Stubble did as told. "Now kick it across the room," she said. He kicked the gun, and it skittered along the floor and thumped against the wall.

She holstered her own revolver, and used her free hand to pat Leather's hips. He had no gun, at least not on his waist. She looked him in the eye, keeping the knife against his throat.

"Now, just so we understand each other," she said. "I don't know who you are and I don't really give a shit. But I'm going to remember you. And if you cross me again, I'm gonna cut your cock off and stuff it up your ass. We understood?"

Leather nodded his head. Susanna motioned to Stubble. "Understood?"

"Yeah."

She released the knife on Leather's throat. A small trickle of blood dropped from a shallow flesh wound. "Good," she said. "Now both of you get the fuck out of here. And I don't want to see you when I get back to Novac. If I do, I'm gonna make good on my promise."

Leather scampered out of the building, leaving a trail of wetness behind. He'd pissed his pants. Stubble followed him. Susanna stood in the doorway, watching them until they were out of sight. When she could no longer see them, she walked back into the office to check out the gun Stubble had dropped. It was a piece of shit; she doubted it would even fetch ten caps. She tossed it across the room and picked up her bag. Her scavenging was done for the day, but at least she'd found the cabinets.

She made it back to Novac before sundown, and when she got there, both Stubble and Leather were gone.


End file.
